Necrotic Earth

by SW Matthews

  “It’s an act, Sy. To maintain stability.”

  “How long has it been like this?”

  “Longer than I’ve been here. At least since the cataclysm.”

  Cole shook his head and let out a long sigh. “Okay, so what’s the truth?”

  “Well, there are a lot of issues facing us. Our country, and even our entire planet, is in real jeopardy. And these bigger issues, the ones that require more long-term planning, those cannot be addressed by elected officials who only have authority for a short amount of time. The ‘big picture’ decisions are made by Mr. Braxton. Part of our job is to follow his direction while denying his involvement. We have to maintain the illusion of the system you just described, so our citizens will feel secure and well served.”

  Cole tried to look surprised. “Are you saying that he—Mr. Braxton—is running the government?”

  “I would say that he lays out our game plan, then we implement it.”

  “So he’s behind this war with China? Is he the one who decided to attack them?”

  “The war with China is a result of their terrorist attacks against us.”

  Cole shook his head. “Who’s the naïve one now?”

  Max squinted at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. So, you’re saying that we, the elected officials, just let him run things?”

  “I’m sure you know our history, Sy. He saved us. If it weren’t for Braxton, we would all be dead. He’s always the smartest person in the room, and his insight and planning have enabled us to reach our current level of success. He truly wants what’s best for us.”

  “I know, I know,” Cole said, “it just… it seems a little deceitful. To the people, I mean. They don’t know who’s really behind our actions, and they have no way to hold him accountable.”

  “I understand why you would feel that way, but you’ll understand once you speak with him directly.”

  “I have met him, you know. His daughter and I are the same age. We attended school together.”

  “I didn’t realize that. Is this the daughter that’s back from the dead but currently missing?”

  “One and the same. I was over at their house a lot as a child. I must’ve asked her out a thousand times.”

  “So you know what I mean about Mr. Braxton, then. He’s very convincing.”

  Cole nodded. “He is. But I have a hard time believing he’s the smartest person in the room if Kat is in that same room.”

  “The daughter, you mean? Your unrequited love?” Max laughed.

  Cole smiled and nodded.

  “Well, let’s see what you think after this meeting. You may just change your mind.”

  As she rose and left the office, Cole looked out of the window once more. The lights of the Rainier Island mansion shone underneath storm clouds in the distance.

  Chapter 60

  The reports coming in from the gravity lab were fragmented, but the gist was that two troop carriers had landed and attacked, each carrying somewhere between five and ten soldiers. Three servo-sentries had been dispatched to the lab, along with two servo-slayers. The slayers were to take out the soldiers, then locate and secure the two scientists and deliver them to the sentries. The sentries were to disable the troop carriers, with one assigned to each helijet, and the third acting as both backup and escape pod for the scientists. Once the two men were delivered by the slayer, that third sentry was to fly to the base outside of Lhasa.

  Of course, as with all combat plans, everything would change as soon as contact with the enemy was made.

  Servo-H194 was the third sentry. He was regarded as the best sentry pilot of the Hotan squadron and therefore was assigned the critical objective of getting the scientists to safety. He would have preferred to participate in the battle, but he understood the importance of his assignment and would follow his orders to the letter.

  The scouts had informed the squadron that the incoming enemy troops would reach the city in minutes. The slow and bulky troop carriers had apparently delivered them a few miles outside the city, so the faster and more agile soldiers could attack and evade as necessary. Now they were coming, and fast. Some were on “flying boards” that were highly maneuverable and exceptionally fast. Others were wearing armored exosuits. They were also flying, but much slower.

  H194 didn’t care how many there were or what they were flying. He just wanted to kill as many as possible. He was excited and ready—although his body refused to feel even slightly agitated. The doctors at the base were administering beta receptor blocking medications to keep his heart rate down, and his ventilator was set at twelve respirations per minute. His body was calm, but his mind was racing.

  He used the advanced optics of his sentry to scan the horizon. He could just make out the oncoming swarm in the distance when the call came. It was time for him proceed to the gravity lab and secure Dr. Wu and Pik Tong. Under no circumstances, he was reminded, was he to let them fall into enemy hands.

  He received the specific mission details en route. But moments later, as he was approaching the lab, he knew the scenario was not unfolding as hoped.

  “H199 powering down. Ready sentry for launch.” The voice coming through his headphones was robotic and monotone, as always. Every servo-soldier spoke in the same mechanical voice, since they didn’t use their lungs, vocal cords, or mouth. They communicated only by thought, which was then converted into sound by the sentry.

  “H121 powering down. Ready slayer for launch,” said another robot.

  What’s happening? wondered H194.

  When the lab came into view, he had his answer. One sentry had been demolished and was scattered beside one of the UNA helijets. The second sentry—H183—was in the process of being torn apart by three large soldiers in black hoods. Five more of the hooded soldiers stood in front of the lab entrance, beside a destroyed slayer. The two helijets appeared undamaged.

  There was no sign of the scientists.

  He focused his attention on the sentry under attack. H183 had had two of his four wheels ripped away, and stripped wires popped and sparked in protest. Both of his shoulder cannons had been removed, and the barrel of the front cannon was bent at a ninety-degree angle. One of the hooded men was pounding on the back of the robot, and another was yanking out one of H183’s arms. But H183’s other arm—and the gun attached—was still active. It turned toward a third soldier—and fired.

  The hooded soldier staggered back, but to H194’s amazement, he didn’t go down. In fact, he resumed his attack, advancing directly into the stream of bullets. When he reached the weapon, he broke it free, along with the arm, and started beating the body of the robot with it.

  “H183 powering down. Ready sentry for launch,” came the same voice through the headphones.

  H194 aimed his three cannons and fired.

  When the smoke and dust cleared, the soldiers were getting back on their feet. They looked up at the hovering sentry. Before H194 could react, two of the soldiers heaved the third soldier up at him. The hooded man sailed into the sky, landed on the front of H194, and started tearing pieces away with his gloved hands.

  He fired his shoulder cannons directly at his assailant, but they had no effect. Another soldier landed on his hull, and H194 could no longer remain airborne. Together, all three crashed to the ground, creating an impact crater.

  H194 had landed on one of the soldiers—but the man was not dead. In fact, he was working to escape by ripping away pieces of the sentry.

  How is this possible? H194 wondered.

  He studied the trapped man. His uniform was a black rubber material, with body armor placed in strategic locations, and his entire head was covered with a black rubber mesh hood. Altogether, the uniform would have allowed no glimpse of what lay beneath, except that it was torn away in several locations, exposing human flesh … uninjured human flesh.

  H194 fired on the trapped soldier with his shoulder cannon. The exposed flesh was torn apart… and then almost instantly repaired i
tself.

  This is not possible.

  H194 felt the back of his robot being ripped apart. He hadn’t stopped these men; he hadn’t even slowed them down.

  He knew that by now his colleagues—H199, H121, and H183—should be incoming with new robots. “Ignore the soldiers. Destroy the transports,” he called to them.

  Then he turned his own front cannon toward the immobile transports and fired.

  The soldiers standing nearby moved to block the incoming fire. Two were hit by the cannon and were sent sprawling. But they regained their footing and began firing into the sky. H199 and H121 had arrived.

  “H154 powering down. Ready slayer for launch,” came the voice again, this time from the sole remaining slayer inside the building.

  The soldier pinned by H194 suddenly stopped fighting. H194 looked down.

  To his amazement, the man’s neck began to lengthen and his head began to rise. The uniform stretched with the movement—accordion-like folds appeared where the hood was attached to the rubber uniform. The neck stretched at least three feet, and when the head was above the level of the impact crater, it paused for a moment, then sank back down to its starting position. The soldier then began digging at the side of the crater, apparently attempting to escape.

  H194’s vision started flickering. He knew his energy source had been breached.

  “H194 powering down. Ready sentry for launch,” he said.

  And suddenly he was back at the launching pad in Hotan, within his second sentry, ready for takeoff. As he initiated flight, he could hear his colleagues at the battle zone.

  “They’re coming out.”

  “They have the scientists.”

  “We need backup.”

  “Negative, H199, all troops are engaged.”

  As H194 neared Kashgar, he could see it was true. A huge battle was taking place a thousand feet below him. Scouts, sentries, and slayers were battling hundreds of soldiers in exo-suits and others on flying boards. Traditional Chinese army soldiers were entering the fray as well, along with a large force of people dressed in green cloaks.

  H194 switched on his broadband radio to listen in.

  “They’re unstoppable!” came a Chinese voice. “The suits are too powerful and the soldiers keep coming, even after direct fire!”

  “Aim for those boards! Take them down!”

  “They’re too fast!”

  “UNA drones coming in from the north!”

  He turned off the radio.

  “H154 almost in range,” came the robotic voice of the slayer, just a few seconds ahead of him. “One of the transports is taking off. Scientists are in it. The other transport is still on the ground.”

  “H199 powering down. Ready sentry for launch.”

  “H121 powering down. Ready slayer for launch.”

  H194 could now see the smoldering wreckage of the servo-soldiers. The transport carrying the scientists was pulling away, accelerating and gaining altitude as it headed south. H183 was being torn apart by four hooded soldiers, but H154 was still airborne and following the transport. H194 pulled up beside him.

  “The scientists are inside,” said H154.

  “They are not to fall into enemy hands.”

  “Use your missiles. Take it down.”

  H194 fired two missiles. The rear props on the helijet exploded, and the craft dipped and slowed, but kept moving. As the two servo-soldiers closed the gap, H194 readied two more missiles.

  But before he could fire a second time, the back cargo ramp opened and four hooded soldiers jumped out. One managed to grab onto H194, and another landed on H154. The other two fell hundreds of feet to the ground.

  The soldier on H154 started tearing apart the robot’s jets and soon both man and robot were plummeting toward the earth. The soldier on H194 was attempting to do the same to him, but the jets on the sentry were less accessible than those on the slayer, giving H194 just enough time to fire another missile before losing power. As he fell, he saw the missile knock out another prop on the helijet, but the craft continued to speed away.

  “Objective failed. Scientists are away,” he said.

  “Relaunch and join the battle,” came his orders.

  He powered down and activated another sentry even before his last one hit the ground.

  Chapter 61

  As Braxton walked down the hall of his mansion, his servant, Mac, appeared at his side holding a commlink.

  “It’s Admiral Sullivan, sir,” said the young man.

  Braxton took the commlink, then nodded at Mac, who turned and walked away.

  “What’s happening, Sully?”

  “We have Wu and Tong.”

  “Excellent! Great work! How long to wrap things up and pull out?”

  “Well, that’s a little more complicated. There’ve been a few developments that are going to slow us down a bit.”

  “Developments?” asked Braxton.

  “The robot force has proven to be very capable.”

  “They’re just robots, right? They aren’t unstoppable. Destroy them and move on.”

  “They’re stoppable all right, but they seem to have an unlimited supply. As soon as one is destroyed, another appears to take its place.”

  “They’ll run out. Keep taking them out.”

  “Their army has regrouped also. The EMPs disabled their phase weapons, but they’ve reverted to conventional weapons and they’re actively fighting. And another force has joined with them. We think it’s the Xanwiti.”

  “Xanwiti? I thought they were fighting against the Chinese. That’s why it was a good time to strike!”

  “They appear to have joined forces, Will. I can’t explain it.”

  “How many?”

  “The Chinese military numbers around one hundred thousand, but we don’t know how many are fighting. At least twenty thousand at both Kashgar and Lhasa. There are thousands of Xanwiti at both cities. They seem to have converged from the mountains in the last twenty-four hours, and by all appearances, they’ve brought thousands of civilians with them.”

  “I’m not worried about soldiers or civilians, Sully. They’re only human. How many robots?”

  “Only a few hundred, but like I said, they seem to be replenishable.”

  “Our team is ‘replenishable’ also. They heal from any wound, so technically we have an infinite number of soldiers out there. Even if their exo-suits and fly-boards are disabled, they can continue to fight without fear.”

  “That’s the other issue. The drones arrived at the battle, and they started firing on our soldiers.”

  “What?”

  “They were reprogrammed. We’re working on it now, but Will… some of our soldiers, when they’re hit by the drones’ EMPs … they’re transforming.”

  Braxton sighed. “You mean dissolving?”

  “Some of them. Others are rapidly aging.”

  Braxton quickened his pace. “I’m going to talk to Cole now. He’s waiting on me. I’ll find out what he did to the drones.”

  “Fear is spreading quickly through the ranks, Will. I’m not sure how long our troops will continue to fight. Maybe we should pull back. We have the tech and the scientists—”

  “No! We can’t let the Chinese come out and accuse us of unjustly attacking them. Given enough time, they could produce evidence to counter all of our accusations and use that to convince other countries to back them. Then we’re right back where we started! We’d have to waste time sorting things out and working together while all of us inch closer to decimation on this damned planet! Besides, we can’t risk having the Chinese come at us with some type of revenge plot in ten or twenty years.”

  “What else can we do, Will? They’re going to beat us.”

  “Take out their airfields and satellites. Have the cyber-warfare section disable their missile defense system, and ready the nuclear strike. Full attack.”

  Sullivan was silent for a moment. Then he weakly responded. “Will, we can’t… “

  �
�We can and we will! Cole will give the order soon. Get Pence and Cotton ready to launch. Where is the Mattis?” Mattis was a nuclear submarine that held sixty nuclear ballistic missiles.

  “She’s patrolling the northern coast of Iran.”

  “Get her in position and ready to fire. I want all cities in China targeted. Do you understand? All cities! I don’t care if there are only ten thousand people in it, I want a bomb on it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll call you in a few minutes with the ‘proper’ authorization.”

  Braxton ended the call, dropped the device into his pocket, then strode quickly toward the observatory, where President Cole was waiting for him.

  Chapter 62

  As the helijet approached Rainier Island, Andy spoke for the first time since leaving Denver. “That’s the president’s helijet.”

  Piper wiped her bloodshot eyes. “It’s huge,” she said. “It’s taking up the entire landing pad.”

  “There’s room for us, I think.”

  Bash’s head popped up from the converted nose-gunner turret. “If the president is here, security will be quite intense, no?”

  Andy nodded. “I’m sure it will be.”

  Doc, Bandit, Rosie, and Jaq were sitting in the plush leather seats in the passenger area. The door to the cargo hold was open, and Kat, in her suit, was sitting in the doorway.

  “I need the guys in uniform ,” Andy said “We’re almost there, and it looks like the president is here, just like you said, Doc. But that means everyone will likely be on high alert.”

  “Sy is here? You’re sure?” Kat stood and moved out of the doorway so Elvis, Rico, and Luis could enter the cabin.

  “Air Force One is hogging the landing pad, so, yes, I’m sure.”

  “How are we going to get in?” Rosie asked.

  “The Braxton logo on the side of this craft will help. Then we’ll send these three guys,” Andy nodded toward the panthers, “up to the control tower. All fatigues look alike in the dark, and you guys certainly don’t look Chinese, so I think you’ll be able to make it to the office without any problems. I’m guessing soldiers aren’t an uncommon sight around here.”